


Poor sweet ginger angel

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: Chicago Med
Genre: And just people being worried about Will, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Will Halstead Whump, Will Halstead and Maggie Lockwood present, hurt will halstead, mystery disease, post s6e02, season six
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:13:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27925072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Post s6e02.Will is feeling a bit down, and falls asleep in a waiting room.Falls asleep... and doesn't wake up again.Will whump, concerned team.
Relationships: Jay Halstead & Will Halstead, Natalie Manning & Will Halstead, Will Halstead & Connor Rhodes (Chicago Med), Will Halstead & Maggie Lockwood, and others
Comments: 12
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

Ahhh, poor sweet ginger angel.

Maggie saw that Will had fallen asleep in some recently cleaned waiting room, just thrown his long frame on a row of uncomfortable chairs. This was probably against a dozen protocols and she should be shooing him out, but... The poor darling had been through so much lately, you didn't need to be a medical specialist to realise that he hadn't been sleeping his best.

But how could he? The whole debacle with the girlfriend, now he had no house, and apparently Sharon hadn't even considered him for the promotion. He'd been through so much shit, with Natalie, with his dad, with... actual criminals, even, and he wasn't ever getting a break, getting some time to rest, some good news.

Just work and more work and more work. Having Ethan wasn't good to be easy on him, either, and it had already started quite... bad. With him being questioned constantly, being "checked", just generally very unpleasant.When the only thing you really feel you have is work and even there, you feel like you're the last guy, despite having been there for years and years... Well, the guy deserved some sleep, at the very least.

Maggie decided that she would talk with Jay, maybe with Natalie too, to see if they could do something for him, if he had any anniversaries of something coming up... Or maybe they could surprise him with an apartment, or at least a selection of them, and then cook some food, have a little housewarming, even if it was just the four of them, or even if they had to do it in twos. Something to make the man feel a bit appreciated.

Have they done that, lately? Appreciate him? Or had it been all reminding him of bad choices, had it been all loss and stress and disagreements?

It had been a really difficult time for a lot of them, especially working in health like they did, and now... Now Will had no one to go home to, actually no home to go to, and a new boss that seemed to be in top of him and distrusting him from the beginning. That poor sweet ginger angel.

Maggie just put a blanket on top of him, turned off the lights and closed the room, so that no one would bother him. And then she started a group chat with Jay and Nat and the title "Mission: cheer up Will" and what she'd seen and what they could do to make things a bit better.

By the next morning, only Natalie had replied with a "Good idea!" , and the promise to talk at work. No news from Jay. Sure, he was probably busy with all his police work, but come on, couldn't he put at least a thumbs up or something?

She sighed as she got ready for another day. The last year had been... challenging to say the least for her too, and if she didn't have people she cared about so much around, she didn't know if she'd been able to take it.

But she could. And she would.

She chatted a bit, did much work, and when she was about to sit, the new chief of the ED appeared, looking stern. Now, she didn't dislike Ethan, at all, but, sometimes...

"Hey, Maggie, you seen Will anywhere? He was supposed to be start his round an hour ago."

Weird.

Will was not someone that would disappear and not give any warning. He would have said something if he wasn't coming, or if he was late, and given how shorthanded they had been lately he wouldn't just leave them like that. But she had no idea of where he was.

"I can tell you where I saw him last, he was sleeping. Maybe it's just that his phone died and the alarm didn't go off?"

They were all very tired lately. It wasn't a bad theory.

"No, his phone is on." Ethan said. "But nobody is answering."

That was weird, too.

And so Maggie went with Ethan to the waiting room and much to her surprise Will was still there, in the same position that she left him. It had been over eleven hours, his phone hd been ringing next to his head... How hadn't he woken up? Something was wrong.

"What's that smell?" Maggie asked, but she knew what it was. No matter how faint, it was something they were very used to.

Blood.

In this recently cleaned room, where there was only Will, they could smell blood.

As they approached the doctor, they noticed that there was a small red puddle under him.

Shit. Shit shit shit shitttt.

"Will?" Maggie asked, a tiny bit of fear in her voice. "Honey, are you all right?"

"Will, hey man, wake up." Ethan said. There was no reaction.

The blood was apparently coming down his mouth, in a small trickle. He was pale as death.

Also not waking up.

Ethan knelt before him and found out that his vitals were all wrong, and that he seemed to be unconscious rather than asleep.

"Prepare a bed, Maggie, call for help."

Ethan took the other doctor in his arms in a bridal carry and moved towards the prepared bed. He didn't like how unresponsive Will was, how far gone. What could this be? He'd been all right the day before, right?

He couldn't help feeling a pang of guilt, too. All this time he'd been berating Will in his head for being late when he should have been berating himself for not noticing that one of his doctors was not all right. But this was not the moment for that, this was the moment for action, to find out what was wrong.

Which was apparently more difficult than expected.

Will was in bad shape, even if whatever he had seemed to be relatively stable. He was apparently near-comatose, and nobody could tell where the blood was coming from, only that it kept coming and that Will wasn't waking up, no matter how hard they tried. No response whatsoever. He had just gone to sleep and never woken up.

And of course, they had other patients, they had an entire hospital to run, but...

"He seemed fine yesterday, didn't he?" Sharon was asking Maggie on the video call, concerned. What if her excessive "candor" and all the let's face it, mean words, had something to do with his collapse? Had she pushed him over the edge? And why wasn't he waking up?

Will may not have been a good candidate for the promotion, but that didn't mean that he wasn't a vital piece of their ED. And now he was semi-comatose, and nobody knew why.

Maggie looked at him, sleeping in that hospital bed, hooked to all those machines, gone to the world, perhaps too tired, perhaps too broken.

Poor sweet ginger angel.

What on earth is happening to you?


	2. Chapter 2

Natalie was trying not to cry, and failing.

She was on a break, and supposed to be getting some air (she really needed to get out of that hospital, she'd been there for so long), but she couldn't get away, she couldn't leave him alone.

Will.

Still unconscious on that bed, so terribly still and pale, so inexplicably ill. She'd seen him sleep many times, they used to share a bed, and he never looked like this. So unmoving, so tired and drained even in his sleep. This was so wrong, and none of them had seen it coming.

She'd been so busy, trying to focus on the patients, and Owen, and with the whole pandemic thing going around... She'd known about Will's breakup, but hadn't heard about the apartment and the position until Maggie had sent that message. Had she even asked him if he was all right?

They may not be in a relationship anymore, but that didn't mean that he wasn't important for her. Because he was, of course he was. Even if they weren't good together, that didn't mean she didn't care for him, and love him, from a distance or not. Not that long ago she'd wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, and she knew that Owen loved him too, despite their rocky beginnings. Will was important.

And she felt that she had abandoned him, just like apparently everyone in the hospital had, except for Maggie. He'd been in a bad spot... She could have offered a place in her couch for a bit, if he had asked. Maybe. She did sometimes miss him, she was now admitting to herself. And she wanted him to be happy, to be okay.

And he was everything but.

They still had no idea of what was going on. It had been about ten hours since they found him, and they ran a million tests, and still still had no idea of what was going on with Will. He hadn't responded to any stimulation, his vitals were only slowly but steadily getting worse. He was getting oxygen through a cannula, but if his stats didn't improve soon, they would have to switch to mask, then maybe intubate.

And they still didn't know what was causing it. They hadn't seen anything in his blood, and there didn't seem to be any brain injury. Now everyone was pitching in their ideas, saying it was something from their field of expertise. But nothing really fit what was happening.

The bleeding had stopped without them figuring out where it was coming from, so it could start again at any moment, and they wouldn't know how to stop it again. Will was losing his life in that bed, and the dozens of medical professionals around him couldn't seem to stop it.

Natalie put her head in her hands, willing herself out of this nightmare.

But no.

That was not what happened.

"What's happened? What's wrong with him?"

Great, now Jay was here, and even though they spent the whole morning doing tests, she had no answer for him.

"I wish I knew, Jay. He's just... not responding. There are no injuries around him, but... He's not waking up."

Jay shook his head, not wanting to believe what he was hearing, what he was seeing.

His big brother, the life saver, the scientist, the... This was so wrong. Will had gotten hurt before, plenty of times, but he always got back up. He didn't let life bring him down, and he learned, and he was there. He'd been there for him, for Natalie and every day he was there for his patients, no matter the cost.

So who was this stranger wearing Will's face and just laying on that hospital bed? How had this happened to him?

"You have no idea of what's wrong? Really?"

They were doctors. This was their job.

"Trust me, Jay, we've done all we can think of, and we are still thinking, but..."

"You don't.... you don't believe he was just very tired and needs couple of days of rest, right?"

Natalie drew a sad smile.

"I wish I did. But he's not resting, Jay. He's... He's getting worse, little by little."

Jay sat on another chair next to Natalie, in front of his brother's bed. He'd been wrapped up in a case, and had ignored the calls and tests from her, and Maggie and later the hospital administration. And when they finally caught the guy and he saw the last messages....

" _Will's been admitted, he's unconscious and unresponsive. Thought you should know"_

_"Something's wrong with Will, we got him on a room on the ED. Maybe it would do him some good to hear your voice."_

_"Jay, your brother needs you!"_

Fuck.

He ran to the hospital, hoping this was some sort of misunderstanding, hoping that maybe he'd overtired himself and just passed out for a bit, but now he was okay again, eating a banana or something while his colleagues berated him for not taking good care of himself.

But no, no such luck.

Will was really ill, and some Chicago's top medical professionals had no idea of what was wrong with him.

"What did you do to yourself, brother?"

This couldn't be Will. He had never been this broken.

He quickly wiped a couple of tears from his face and tried to focus. Tried to figure out a way to fix this. They had to fix this, it was Will, for god's sake.

"Ok, Nat, you keep on doing tests, yeah? Anything you can think of, anything. I'll... I'll investigate, this could be a toxin from somewhere he's been, right? Can you spare someone who knows about medicine to come with me?"

"Take Elsa, call her if she's not around, I'll send you her number, she has a good eye. And keep me updated, all right?"

"You too." He said, throwing one last pained look to his brother's bed.

He couldn't stay any longer.

Natalie, on the other hand, didn't seem to be able to leave.

"I just don't want you to be alone."

Which was good, since only a few minutes after that he took a turn for the worse he got some care. Some attention.

.... but still no solutions.


	3. Chapter 3

Jay was pissed.

His brother was mysteriously ill and he had no way, no idea of how to help. The people at the hospital told him that he could help by figuring out what had he done on the days before, that maybe they could figure out what he'd been exposed to, what had hurt him.

But Jay didn't need to be a doctor to know that it was a long shot. Almost all toxins and poisons would have appeared in their tests. And Jay knew that they had done every test known to man, some for very obscure and rare stuff. And all the tests came back clean, so this was just getting in Will's private life for nothing.

He and this girl (Elsa, who kept saying medical and chemical things he couldn't fully understand, making him wish he hadn't ignored his brother so much when he talked about medicine) were looking over cleaning products and old food, and finding nothing that could really help.

Disheartened, Jay sat on his brother's couch, put his head on his hands, let out a long profound sigh. Fuck. He couldn't help Will. He couldn't couldn't couldn't. He was useless. (Technically, Jay knew he wasn't completely useless, but god did he feel like it)

He felt so helpless, and that doctor student telling him things he didn't know wasn't helping one bit. He'd more than once blamed Will for not being there when mum... And he would've helped, because he knew how. But he, what use was he? He was always there, and the only thing he did for mom (or dad even) was...

And now Will was going to leave, just like everyone else did. Like his parents had, one and then the other, without him admitting it was going to happen, without practically him realising anything. Without really helping. And then Erin left, without even saying goodbye, and Mouse left too, even if Jay told him he was only going to hurt himself further, that he had a place with them in PD, with him... But he could never do anything make people stay.

And now he was going to have to go back to Will's hospital room, where his brother lay, pale, ill, unconscious and unresponsive and tell his hopeful friends and colleagues that no, he found nothing, he was no help, and then he was going to have to continue watching his brother waste away, get smaller and have less chances of waking up...

"Detective Halstead?" Elsa said, awkwardly. She could tell that the detective was going through a hard time, but didn't know what to do about it. "Are you all right?"

He looked back at her with big bright teary eyes.

"I'm not. I can't do a single thing for Will."

Elsa looked with a "so?" expression.

"That's perfectly understandable. Your brother has a medical problem, and you are law enforcement. Medical problems are solved by doctors, not police, so stop beating yourself up about it and try and use your detective mind and evidence analysis to recreate Will's last moments, yes?"

They did, and the only thing they got was maybe taking a deeper look at the shower gel and shampoo from the hospital showers, which was a weak lead at best since if there was something wrong there surely Will wouldn't be the only one affected.

And so Jay went back to the hospital, hoping against hope that something had happened, that the doctors had finally found an answer to the mystery, that those eyes he'd grown up with were open again.

But nothing.

Maggie, Nat and the others came at him with hopeful eyes, and he shook his head, barely holding on to tears. He'd found nothing.

He went back to Will's hospital room, missing his brother more than ever. Because when he was at a tight spot at work, or emotionally... Will was the person he trusted the most, and even if they didn't always see eye to eye, Will listened, and offered his honest opinion, and he, he... cared.

"I miss you, brother. Please, please come back."

But it was not Will who answered - instead, it was one of the machines he was hooked up to, screaming bloody murder as his brother stopped breathing.


	4. Chapter 4

"You had to put the ventilator, hmm, when?"

This was definitely not what Connor had in mind when he thought of paying a quick visit to med in his short time on the city. He'd been wanting to see Will, of course, he'd actually been one of the people he'd wanted to see the most.... But not like this. Definitely not like this.

"There's nothing in his labs, we've ran every possible test" Natalie was saying, eyes bright. "But we can't find anything, and he's just getting worse. I... Jay was at his place too, looking for chemicals, anything, but there's nothing there either. And I feel like we're running out of time."

So, it seemed like Connor was their last and only hope. The surgeon had never been one to shy away from a challenge, but this... when someone he cared about was on the other side, when his life was on the line... Well, it was difficult to think straight, to be objective and not let emotion get the best of you, blur your vision, like he was sure was happening not just to Natalie but to everyone.

His relationship with Will hadn't been exactly the best, they've butted heads quite a few times and Connor had been exasperated by the red-headed doctor's stubbornness more than once during his time in Chicago Med.

Still, that didn't mean that he didn't appreciate what a good doctor Will was, and what a good person, despite some personality flaws. And we all had personality flaws, didn't we? The main thing was that Will was always trying to make the best for the patients, that he was fun and kind and could be very good in a crisis. And hell, he'd been a friend to him, and he'd been someone special.

But everything that Will was was gone now now, or at least paused, hidden and unable to get out under some mystery illness. Connor knew just how bad things had got to be for intubation to be necessary, so seeing his friend like that, unable to breathe, so pale that his skin was almost indistinguishable from the sheets... It was hard. And Natalie had said that he'd been like that for a couple of weeks, which meant that he had even less chances to wake up.

Connor sighed.

He'd seen Will's brother too, a tinge of hope upon seeing the surgeon in those enormous pale eyes. The responsibility felt so big, because it wasn't just getting back his friend, their very much appreciated doctor, Will was all the family this bright-eyed detective had left, and him and a lot of people were counting on him to save Will.

So he had to start, get on with it.

Allergy and auto-immune disease tests were carried out, to rule out an extreme anaphylactic shock, but there would have been some traces of that in any of the other tests, wouldn't there?

"How had he been, lately?" he asked Maggie, while he was with him, Nat and Jay, having formed some sort of crisis team. This wasn't a good theory medically, but there had been weirder cases.

"Well, not great. Broke up with his girlfriend, was going to get kicked out of his apartment, passed over for a promotion. So not great."

"He, he didn't meet with me a couple of times because he was feeling very tired." Jay added. "I imagined it was because you guys had more work because of the pandemic, but maybe it was some symptoms of something?"

"That's... the only thing I can come with. Chronic fatigue syndrome."

"Connor"

"I know, I know, it doesn't usually affect breathing or consciousness this much, but there's extreme cases of everything, right? Just because it hasn't been reorded so far doesn't mean it's impossible, someone's gotta be the first."

"He has been looking quite tired these last few days."

Connor knew that medically it was a long-shot, but logically it made sense.

"What Jay said is relevant too, you guys have been dealing with more work because of the pandemic, more stress, more anguish, and the possibility of not just getting sick but passing the sickness to people with less of an immune system, if you add that to the issue with the house, the girlfriend, the promotion..."

It was making more sense as he explained it, it was true.

"And how do you heal that?" Jay said, trying not to get his hopes too up.

"There's no approved specific treatment for it, we're just supposed to treat the symptoms." Connor said, absolutely bummed.

"We could still give you some vitamin bombs, vitamin C, vitamin B complex, sodium, magnesium, zinc, folic acid, l-carnitine, l-tryptophan, essential fatty acids, and coenzyme Q10..."

"I mean, it's not a solution-solution, but if it's an extreme case of CFS it might help him, help him breathe again at least, maybe even manage to wake up."

It was not a bad idea, so they put it into practise and waited.

And god, was the waiting the hardest part like the song said.

They knew that medically, they had no clear diagnosis, medically he shouldn't be this far gone, and medically they had no reason for these vitamins and helpers to actually work. But weirder ha happened before, in that very same hospital even and...

They waited.

Jay waited, with some of his friends from intelligence trying to keep him afloat.

Maggie, and Natalie and Dr Charles and half the hospital waited, with baited breath, for some news, for a change. They waited, and although they knew that it could be days, or weeks, or not even work and that they should go back to their lives... Will was never far from their thoughts.

Connor waited too, and although there didn't seem to be any reason to be actually happy... He had a feeling everything would turn out okay.

"Nah, you're too stubborn to go like this, aren't you? Now come back, I have something to tell you."

It was a cheap trick, and the furthest things from scientific...

But it could work.

It would work.

It would.


	5. Chapter 5

The first thing that Will noticed was just how comfortable he was.

He'd been for so long dozing off on chair, air mattresses, couches, stuff like that, but no he seemed to be in a bed, and a comfortable one. And he honestly had no idea of how he got there, had a hard time remembering the last... well, anything.

The next thing he realised was that there was something down his throat, taking up all speace. He panicked for a second, tried ot breathe, until years of experience taught him he must be intubated. Why?

He opened his eyes, and saw more eyes looking at him. Little by little he started recognising them.

Natalie, Jay, Connor? All looking shocked and very tired but happy, looking at him as if he was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Huh. This was certainly not anything that he'd been expecting.

Was he... was he a patient? What had happened?

"Wait" that was Natalie "we'll take out the tube."

And so they did and it unpleasant as fuck, but after some deep coughing, Will felt more awake and more aware of what was going on around him.

He was indeed in a room, admitted and everyone around him was looking... rough. Jay was crying (from joy, hopefully), his hair messy, his beard longer than Will had ever seen. Maggie came spronting too, a big smile on her face.

"Finally waken from your nap, huh?"

Will smiled.

"How long was I out?"

"Twenty four days." Connor deadpanned.

"WHAT?"

"Yeah, you took your sweet time. And we are still not sure of what was the problem."

"What we are sure of is that we missed you." Maggie said. "Things really weren't the same without you. So you don't ever do anything like that again, all right?"

"I'm still not exactly sure what I did in the first place..."

"The important thing is that you're back." Jay said. "And you're going to take it easy, and you're coming to my apartment and sleeping in a proper bed and... things will be good again, ok? It's going to be better."

There was still the issue of what had happened. since the vitamins and all that seemed to have worked CFS was still the most plausible theory, but it was a bit strange how it had so abruptly become so severe. Maybe it had been too many things happening at the same time, maybe there had been some environmental factor, or maybe his exhaustion had interacted badly with something chemical... who knew.

The important thing was that this mystery disease, for all the suffering that it had caused, it had also reminded the people around Will just how much they appreciated him, needed him even. It showed in a graphic and kind of painful way that they wanted the red headed doctor to be fine, to be looked after, and to be there with them.

It brought back Connor too, and maybe he was considering coming back for good, returning to the hospital. Reminded Jay of how much he cared about his brother, and how he really really should never take him for granted. And Maggie and Natalie were just happy to have their friend back, with his smile, big bright eyes - with all that he was.

Will had many flaws, and so did they, but that didn't mean that he wasn't an important prt of their lives, of the hospital, of Chicago even. He was unique - and the notion that he there would be one day when he wasn't around anymore....

No.

They would still have much time with Will.

And now that they had realised just how valuable it was, they were going to make the most of every moment with him.

"You guys, I feel like a prince or something with all this love!"

"Because that's what you are, Will!" Maggie said. "A sweet little ginger angel but also the prince of your hearts."

He smiled, a big bright smile.

"It may be a bit too corny... but what the hell. After all they had gone through, maybe corny was just the thing.

Good company, smiles and affection.

The way it always should be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> You know you want to commenttt


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